A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Vitalis Orikeze Ajumbe, has advised Governor Nasir El-Rufai to apologise to the party’s Caretaker National Chairman, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State.

Ajumbe, a former Imo State Commissioner for Information Tourism and Public Utilities, gave the advice while reacting to El-Rufai’s claims in his controversial interview with Channels TV on Wednesday, March 9, 2022.

He accused El-Rufai of misquoting the APC Constitution on zoning of the National Chairmanship and Presidential positions.

According to Prof. Ajumbe in a statement made available to News Express by e-mail, “APC constitution says that the National Chairman and the President shall not come from the same zone. What it means here is an elected President and not a presidential candidate. It means that when the President is elected, the National Chairman from that zone which produced the President shall resign and the position goes to the other zone.

“I guess he may be projecting a Presidential aspirant from the South who may have agreed to make him his vice presidential candidate because HE El-Rufai does not ‘bark’ in vain.

“El-Rufai was silent during the leadership of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni, the Governor of Yobe State and the Chairman APC Caretaker Committee, and I believe that he did not support him. For all I know, El-Rufai is not a member of the APC Caretaker Committee or its spokesperson and does not have their mandate to talk on the zoning of the party’s positions or on such official issues.

“He used hard words on his brother governor, HE Mai Mala Buni, as if they were on a boxing ring by using such harsh words which suggest that he was incompetent, selfish and intentionally tried to destroy APC.”

Continuing, Ajumbe said: “The court order of November 2021 he brandished on the television may be true, but Mai Mala Buni committee made up of respected and responsible Nigerians might have viewed it as inconsequential may be after finding out the source or may have acted on it. It could not have been cited as a tool of destruction without first hearing from either him or any of his committee members are still available.”

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